DOUBLE DISILLUSION THE 2016 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION DOUBLE DISILLUSION THE 2016 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION EDITED BY ANIKA GAUJA, PETER CHEN, JENNIFER CURTIN AND JULIET PIETSCH Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia ISBN(s): 9781760461850 (print) 9781760461867 (eBook) This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph by Mike Bowers/Guardian News & Media. This edition © 2018 ANU Press This book is dedicated to the memory of Margareta Gauja (1950–2016) Contents Illustrations . xi List of Abbreviations . xvii Acknowledgements . xxi Contributors . xxiii 1 . ‘Double Disillusion’: Analysing the 2016 Australian Federal Election . .. 1 Anika Gauja, Peter Chen, Jennifer Curtin and Juliet Pietsch Part One. Campaign Themes and Context 2 . ‘I’m Not Expecting to Lose …’: The Election Overview and Campaign Narrative . 17 Marija Taflaga and John Wanna 3 . The Ideological Contest: Election 2016 . 59 Carol Johnson 4 . Turnbull versus Shorten: The Major Party Leadership Contest . 81 Paul Strangio and James Walter 5 . National Polls, Marginal Seats and Campaign Effects . 107 Murray Goot 6 . The Campaign that Wasn’t: Tracking Public Opinion over the 44th Parliament and the 2016 Election Campaign . 133 Simon Jackman and Luke Mansillo Part Two. Reporting and Analysing the Results 7 . The House of Representatives Results . 159 Ben Raue 8 . The Senate Results . 185 Antony Green 9 . The States and Territories . 211 Ferran Martinez i Coma and Rodney Smith 10 . Changing Leaders, ‘Mediscare’ and Business as Usual: Electoral Behaviour . 235 Clive Bean Part Three. Actors and Arenas 11 . The Australian Labor Party’s Campaign . 257 Rob Manwaring 12 . The Liberal Party of Australia’s Campaign . 277 Nicholas Barry 13 . The Australian Greens’ Campaign . 297 Stewart Jackson 14 . The National Party of Australia’s Campaign: Further ‘Back from the Brink’ . 317 Geoff Cockfield and Jennifer Curtin 15 . The Minor Parties’ Campaigns . 335 Glenn Kefford 16 . Independents Return and the ‘Almost’ Hung Parliament . 359 Jennifer Curtin 17 . Interest Groups and the Election . 381 Darren R . Halpin and Bert Fraussen 18 . GetUp! in Election 2016 . 397 Ariadne Vromen 19 . Still the Main Source: The Established Media . .. 421 Andrea Carson and Brian McNair 20 . Non-Mainstream Media Coverage . 453 Peter Chen 21 . The Election Online: Debate, Support, Community . 475 Scott Wright, Verity Trott and William Lukamto Part Four. Policy Debates 22 . Economic Policy Debates . 501 Damien Cahill and Matthew D .J . Ryan 23 . The Industrial Relations Policy and Penalty . 519 David Peetz 24 . ‘Mediscare!’: Social Issues . 549 Amanda Elliot and Rob Manwaring 25 . ‘Continuity and Change’: Environmental Policy and the Coming Energy Transition . 571 Rebecca Pearse 26 . Refugee Policy: A Cruel Bipartisanship . 593 Sara Dehm and Max Walden 27 . ‘Ignore Us at Your Peril, Because We Vote Too’: Indigenous Policy . 619 Diana Perche 28 . Rainbow Labor and a Purple Policy Launch: Gender and Sexuality Issues . 641 Blair Williams and Marian Sawer 29 . Migrant and Ethnic Politics in the 2016 Election . .. 661 James Jupp and Juliet Pietsch 30 . Conclusion: The Implications of the 2016 Federal Election . 681 Anika Gauja, Peter Chen, Jennifer Curtin and Juliet Pietsch Illustrations Figures Figure 6.1. Trajectories of support for various parties (voting intentions, per cent), 2013–16 ...................139 Figure 6.2. Jumps in voting intentions associated with the prorogation of parliament and Turnbull ascension ..........140 Figure 6.3. Trajectories of support for various parties (voting intentions, per cent), restricted to calendar year 2016 .......142 Figure 6.4. Polling organisation bias estimates .................144 Figure 6.5. Performance of seat-specific polls ..................147 Figure 6.6. Performance of seat-specific polls by party and pollster ..149 Figure 6.7. Performance of seat-specific polls, by party and over time (days until election) ......................151 Figure 7.1. Total House of Representatives candidates per election, 1990–2016 .......................................163 Figure 7.2. Seats decided on preferences, 1993–2016 ............165 Figure 7.3. Winners of federal seats in Australia, 1984–2016 ......171 Figure 7.4. Non-classic races in federal elections, 1990–2016 ......173 Figure 7.5. Greens vote in inner-city federal electorates in Melbourne and Sydney ..............................176 Figure 8.1. Informal vote at Senate elections, 1919–2016. 189 Figure 8.2. Sample Senate ballot paper .......................191 Figure 8.3. Minor party vote at federal elections, 1949–2016 ......199 xi DOUBLE DISILLUSION Figure 8.4. Use of above-the-line group voting squares, 1984–2016 .......................................204 Figure 9.1. Distribution of first preference votes, 2016 federal election (Tukey box plots) ............................226 Figure 9.2. Distribution of first preference votes, 2013 federal election (Tukey box plots) ............................226 Figure 9.3. Distribution of two-party preferred swing, 2013–16 (Tukey box plots). 228 Figure 11.1. ALP first preferences and two-party preferred vote, 1980–2016 .......................................260 Figure 11.2. ALP first preferences and swing, national and States, 2016 ............................................260 Figure 13.1. Greens election results, 1993–2016 ...............299 Figure 14.1. Proportion of seats and primary votes for the Country–National Party for the House of Representatives ....326 Figure 15.1. Per cent of first preference votes for minor parties and Independents. 336 Figure 18.1. GetUp! analysis: Where do the parties stand on issues? . 402 Figure 18.2. GetUp! – How to vote in Mayo ..................406 Figure 19.1. The number of front-page stories in Australia’s daily mastheads’ Monday to Saturday editions during the 56-day 2016 election campaign. .427 Figure 19.2. Number of positive and negative daily front-page stories by masthead for Liberal and Labor ................428 Figure 19.3. Number of positive and negative daily front-page news stories during the election campaign by political party ...429 Figure 19.4. Story sentiment of front-page newspaper stories during the federal election for Liberal and Labor ...........430 Figure 20.1. Characterisation of reporting, by publication ........460 Figure 20.2. Publications’ relationship with the median news agenda. 464 Figure 21.1. The nature of debate ...........................485 xii Illustrations Figure 21.2. Election topics ...............................488 Figure 21.3. Election experience ............................489 Figure 24.1. Media coverage of social issues at the 2016 election (number of articles) .................................550 Figure 24.2. Issues most important to Australians, 2013–16 .......562 Figure 25.1. Support for the carbon price, 2012–14 .............576 Figure 25.2. Views on Coalition and Labor climate change plans by voter groups ....................................577 Figure 26.1. Refugees and the 2016 election ...................604 Figure 28.1. Women as a percentage of Coalition and Labor MPs in the House of Representatives, 1977–2016. .644 Figure 28.2. Rainbow Labor, 2016 Mardi Gras ................649 Tables Table 5.1. Final pre-election public opinion polls for the House of Representatives election, national voting intention, 2 July 2016 (percentages). 112 Table 5.2. Mean differences between the final national polls and the election results, 2016 (percentage points) ..........114 Table 5.3. Differences between polls’ estimate of party support and the final vote, single seats, campaign period, 2016 (percentage points). .120 Table 6.1. Summary of poll errors ..........................147 Table 7.1. Results of the 2013 federal election by party ..........161 Table 7.2. Results of the 2016 federal election by party ..........164 Table 7.3. Turnout 2013 and 2016 (percentages) ...............166 Table 7.4. Seats changing hands at the 2016 federal election ......166 Table 8.1. Senate results compared to list-PR with highest remainder allocation. 193 Table 8.2. Senate results in 2016 in States with six Coalition Senators. .196 xiii DOUBLE DISILLUSION Table 8.3. Senate election results, 2016 ......................197 Table 8.4. Difference in party support .......................200 Table 8.5. Senators elected by initial quota status ...............201 Table 8.6. Formal ballot papers categorised by method of completion and preferences .........................203 Table 8.7. Exhausted preferences by State .....................206 Table 9.1. Average Coalition and Labor first preference votes in lower house State and Territory elections, July 1996 – June 2016 (percentages). .216 Table 9.2. The States and Territories in 2016 ..................218 Table 9.3. The major party leaders’ campaign visits to States and Territories .....................................220 Table 9.4. Potential State effects on Coalition voting at the 2016 federal election. 222 Table 9.5. House of Representatives two-party preferred vote by State and Territory, 2016. 223 Table 9.6. House of Representatives first preference